Why cast doubt on People’s Climate Vote?

IN a recent letter, Mike Jackman casts doubt on the findings of the recently published Peoples’ Climate Vote which was the largest survey of public opinion on climate change ever conducted involving 1.2 million global respondents. It was undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in conjunction with experts from the University of Oxford, which is often ranked as the world’s leading institution of Higher Education.

I’m not sure how Mr Jackman’s expertise and experience in polling and in the statistical analysis of survey results compare with that of Professor Stephen Fisher, the lead academic in the team from Oxford University, but I was reassured to read in the report that ‘with such a large sample size, and rich sociodemographic information, the margin of error of the results is on average +/ – 2%’.

Interestingly, one of the clearest and most telling results of this study was the high positive correlation recorded between level of education and belief in the climate emergency. The survey clearly demonstrated the more educated you are, the more likely you are to believe that there is a climate emergency, irrespective of your country of origin, age or gender. Professor Bruce Webb

Exeter